Saturday, April 23, 2011

Becca Enigma Palette

The Becca Enigma Eyeshadow Palette ($49) is a limited edition compact. The product comes in a tiny, portable case not much larger than a deck of cards and half as thick. Here it is in front of an Edward Bess lip gloss for comparison:

The palette contains three full-sized pans, along with a mini eye brush that does a fairly decent job for on-the-go touch ups. The colors are:

Armure Demi Matt (fawn)

Silesia Demi Matt (smoke)

Surah Shimmer (mushroom)

Pigmentation is excellent, and the texture is what you'd expect from Becca: silky and smooth and not overly powdery. The matte shadows are not flat. Even though it says "matte" on the bottom of the compact, the Becca web site lists Armure and Silesia as demi matt, and I have found that to be the case. Both have a satin finish.

Enigma is a cool-toned taupe lover's delight. With just these three colors you can do natural or dramatic. Note that there is no highlighter color--all colors in this palette are mean to stand on their own or be blended together.

It would be easy to create a subtle, work-appropriate look using Surah on the lid, Armure in the crease, and Silesia to line. Silesia also works well along the lash line, smudged up, with Armure in the crease and Surah in the inner corners.

Armure is called "soft fawn" by Becca, but when I think of a baby deer, I think of red brown. Armure is more like a soft dove grey, purely cool in tone, maybe the color of baby field mouse

Surah is a neutral taupe, and mushroom is a good adjective to describe it, greige with hints of mauve. Surah is the only color in the trio that contains shimmer, but the shimmer is extremely subtle. I took the below photo outside in indirect sun so you could see the subtlety of the shimmer.

Silesia is a mid-toned smokey grey. It makes a subtle liner and a very pretty crease color that blends out quite well.

7 comments:

Lovely post. I have and love this palette. I agree that it really is a must if you're a fan of cool toned taupes. Like you I hesitated but I truly don't think I have anything exactly like it. I like the variety of looks you can create too.Jane x

Hello, Jane, and thank you! I came across your post when I was deciding if I should get the palette a month or so ago. I was very grateful for your photos, swatches and I thought it most excellent that you included images of the makeup on your eyes.

I was hoping that I would not like this palette, as well. Yes, a definite must have in one's collection. Beautifil colors and from from descriptions, they blend quite nicely together. Another great post.